English abstract
The study investigated the effectiveness of a phonological awareness based training program in improving the decoding skills of third grade students with reading disabilities. The study sample included initially forty students from those referred for learning support units in two schools in Al-Batinah South. The students were administered a reading achievement test and the Raven nonverbal intelligence test in order to diagnose reading disabilities using the achievement-aptitude model. Out of the forty students 14 students diagnosed with reading disabilities were randomly divided into experimental and control groups with 7 students in each group. Students in both groups were administered a phonological awareness test in segmentation and blending (word and non-word tasks) and a test in decoding skills (non-word tasks-voweled word task, voweled non-word task, oral reading fluency). The tests were based on the tests developed by Emam et al. (2014). In addition to a phonological awareness based training program was administered to the experimental group. Both groups were matched and there were no significant differences on both tests and both groups performed poorly on the tests. Students in the experimental group were then exposed to a phonological awareness based training program. Results of the study showed that following the training program there were statistically significant differences between the experimental and control groups on the scores of the phonological awareness test (word segmentation, blending sounds) as well as the decoding skills test (non-word reading, voweled word reading, unvoweled word reading) in favor of the experimental group. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in oral reading fluency. Further there were statistically significant differences between the pre and post assessment scores of the experimental group on the phonological awareness test (word segmentation, blending sounds) as well as the decoding skills test (non-word reading, voweled word reading, unvoweled word reading and oral reading fluency) in favor of the post assessment scores, reflecting the effectiveness of the trai program in improving the decoding skills of third grade students with reading disabilities. The study concludes that phonological awareness based training should be adopted with students with reading disabilities in schools.
